«They went from mini-pigs to giant pigs, but we still love them.»

The number of owners of miniature pigs is growing in the United Kingdom. Miniature pigs do not bark, they are more affectionate, are considered more intelligent than dogs and are easier to train to do certain things.

But before you follow the British example, you should know one very important thing, miniature pigs often grow into no small pigs at all. Mini-pigs are products of selection. That is, they are simply bred by continually selecting the smallest piglet in the litter and then crossing it with the smallest pig of the other sex.

But selection is not 100 percent sure, and there is always the risk that your little piglet will flout all the laws of selection and grow into a naturally huge pig. What would you do with it in a city apartment? A lot of people sell them on farms, but the people here are so in love with them that they couldn’t bear to part with them when they bred a 100-kg boar out of a tiny pig.

Karen Patterson, 50, lives with her husband of 54 years, John, two grown children and a large pig named Poppet.

«I used to not be a fan of pigs. We had four dogs living in our house. But one day in late 2016, I decided to remove the old bushes from our house garden and then joked that we had room for a pig. The joke turned out to be that my husband and I then went to pick us out a mini-pig. There I saw a baby piggy, Poppet, and he immediately stole my heart.

His parents were the size of a small dog, so Karen and her husband thought Poppet would grow up to be just like him. They bought the piglet for 650 pounds and then spent quite a bit more time getting the paperwork done for him. To keep a mini-pig at home in Britain, you need to get a special permit, which takes into account the conditions of the pig, its food and other details.

When Poppet was running around Karen’s house for the first couple of months, he was so small that he could easily fit through the cat’s door. Then he started to grow and kept getting bigger and bigger. At 18 months of age, he weighed 114kg!

With one movement of his face, he could twist a garden tile, overturn a coffee table, or drop a stool in the kitchen. He tore up all of his stuffed animals and made a mess of every flowerpot in the garden. According to Karen, they suffered several hundred pounds of damage from the pig. Especially when he damaged the garden fence.

Poppet has also proven to be very picky about food, he eats mostly green beans and also loves sweets like profiteroles or cakes. Before Poppet grew into a giant pig, he used to sleep in the house on the couch with the dogs. Now he’s kept in a big kennel in the garden that’s heated in the winter, but he comes home regularly.

But despite all the damage and inconvenience of having such a large and clumsy pet, Karen and her husband John do not give the pig away, but continue to keep him in their home. They have become very attached to Poppet and have grown to love him.

«We all love him like he’s still a little piggy. His antics, which cause us so much damage, aren’t dangerous, he’s just very playful.»

The two big pigs live with Tanya Bridgman, who works as a teacher and riding coach. She and her husband live near the town of Lincoln in the east of England. They got both pigs from their friends who bought them as small mini-pigs, but when the pigs grew into larger animals, they could no longer keep them in their home.

Tanya has other animals living at home, dogs and a cat, but the pigs are the most affectionate of them all. Tanya tells me that one night she woke up to Olaf the pig crawling into her bed and snuggling under her side.

Each of the pigs weighs about 100kg and they grew up in a house where they were pampered a lot and even dressed in different costumes. At first Tanya’s husband wanted to train them to sleep outside in a special enclosure, but the pigs were completely tame and it was a shock to them. Soon they were taken pity on them and allowed to sleep at home, but in the summer they still try to take the pigs out into the yard because they often steal food from the kitchen.

Tanya and her husband have a house with a big orchard of apple trees, and one fall, Paloma the pig ate some apples that had fallen and started to ferment and really got intoxicated. She walked staggering and falling and then suffered from a hangover for several more days.

In addition to walking by the apple trees, the pigs regularly dig in the ground and Tanya constantly struggles with this habit of theirs. But despite everything, they still love their unusual pets.

The only person who doesn’t like Olaf and Paloma is the local vet. All because one day when he came to check on them at home, one of the pigs attacked his car and damaged the bumper.

Ali Marriott, 37, is a businesswoman and owns disability centers. She lives in Birdfordshire with her sons Reed and Oakes and a pig named Mavis.

«When I got Mavis in 2009 from a local mini-pig breeder, she was no bigger than a Jack Russell Terrier dog and cost 200 pounds. Now she’s the size of a kitchen table and weighs over 200kg.»

Ali says she named her piggy Mavis after her late grandmother, whom she loved very much, and she loves the piggy, too, despite her enormous size. No one could have imagined that the little mini-pig would grow into such a huge thing.

The first two years Mavis lived in the house and loved to lie on the couch and watch TV with everyone else. But then she got so big that she got stuck in the doorways, so they took her to Ali’s parents’ house, which was next door. They built a big house in the yard for Mavis there, and Ali and her boys go there every day to play with the pig.

Ali tells us that Mavis is a very smart pig and she knows many commands. She also, for some reason, adores red-haired people and often rubs herself against the legs of the local blacksmith, demanding affection from him in return.

Of course Mavis, just like any other large animal in the house, regularly breaks some things, but everyone is used to it by now. The most important thing is to close all the cupboards and drawers from the pig. Otherwise it will get in there and eat everything.

Claire Muirhead, 44, lives in Hardsfordshire with her husband Paul and four sons. They also have four pigs Pablo, Kiwi, Percy and Elmo living in the house with them. In 2016, Claire purchased two mini piglets, Percy and Pablo. She decided to take two at once, she really liked them.

At the same time, the girl breeder honestly warned her that they could grow much larger than normal mini-pigs. The thing was that the mother of these piglets was small in size, no bigger than an average dog, but the father belonged to the Gloucester spotted breed, and they can be just huge.

Soon two more piglets, Kiwi and Elmo, arrived at Claire’s house. Elmo is the youngest, having been here last summer and therefore the «skinniest» of all and the most spoiled. All four of Claire’s pigs expectedly quickly grew not at all up to mini-pig standards, but the woman had no intention of giving them up. The pigs have only been moved to live in the backyard. But they still come into the house regularly, as they are used to the facilities.

Pablo is the leader of the group, the alpha male, he leads everyone, and Kiwi is the smartest, he has learned to sit on command because he knows he will get something tasty for it. Elmo, on the other hand, was so spoiled that he slept in bed with Claire for a while until he got too big for it.

Pigs love to walk around the house, and if you leave a bag of apples or potatoes unattended in the kitchen, they’ll steal it and eat it neatly in the street. When the pigs make a mess at home, Claire’s husband and sons swear at them, but according to Claire, they still love the mischievous pets.